Domino Sugar, a US company, is owned by Alfonso and Pepe Fanjul. They are called the “Sugar Sultans.”  Their operations produce more than 2 MILLION tons of refined sugar.  The annual revenue is more than $1billion.   It doesn’t count the fact that it is also subsidized by the US government.   Someone subsidizes my company with $65 million bucks and I turn around and give tax-free $2 million donation.  What a deal!  The sugar business is a dirty business. That doesn’t include its slave history, past and present.

Sugar plantations affect the environment in numerous ways. Like any crop, forests must be cleared, fossil fuel used and processing wastes are impactful.  Additionally, all those crops that are related to sugar have their own effects: coffee, tea, chocolate that put additional requirements on the environment. There are ‘hidden’ costs: upkeep of office buildings where these industry people work, marking, packaging, health-related costs, the pay of lobbyists and regulation agencies.  In Mexico and El Salvador, there have been allegations that Coca-Cola used military strength to prevent unionizing & keep employees towing the party line.   The list goes on.  Sugar and Blood: Coke in Latin America, Lip Magazine. http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featlydersen_167.shtml 

“Liquid Candy” was a 1999 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Teen-age boys are drinking 5 or more cans of soda a day @ 10 t. of sugar/can.  One-fifth of those 2 and 3 year olds in the US now drink soda.  Munchin Bottling, Inc  have Dr. Pepper and 7-Up Logos emblazoned on their baby bottles as a marketing ploy.   High Fructose Corn Syrup, HFCS,  currently represents 40% of sweeteners added to foods and beverages, and it is conservatively estimated that the average rate of consumption is 132 daily calories for everyone over the age of two (Bray et al., 2004). This figure increases to more than 300 calories per day.  The result, among others,  are calcium deficiencies leading to increased bone fractures and a compromised immune system.

Which comes first?  The craving or a pre-existing condition such as:  a low fat diet leading to insulin resistance?  Hormone imbalance, metabolic syndrome, low blood sugar and/ or low serotonin?  The body wisdom does not register linear effects: it simply registers what is going on …all at the same time.  Its genius is that it tracks it all.  Its genius is that it is a self-healing organism, sometimes needing a boost.  A naturopath can be of great value sorting this list out and making a plan of action.

Baby steps can be taken without needing to understand it all:·

• Remove sugar-laden products from the home
• Remove corn from the diet [inflammation, irritability and stiffness]
• Read labels.  Make sure any form of sugar is 6th on the list and lower
• Eat protein in small portions, minimizing over-eating
• Boycott soft drinks
• Minimize fruit until the sweet cravings stop
• Boycott coffee as it can lower blood sugar and bring on sugar cravings

It doesn’t matter why we boycott sugar: environment, health or politics.  Only that we do something powerful with our actions that has a resounding effect on our health and then, watch the domino effect as it positively effects the health of the planet and changes politics.

http://www.womentowomen.com/symptoms/cravings.aspx

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Sugar.asp

http://www.baumancollege.org/newsite/articles/cornucopia.html

http://www.baumancollege.org/newsite/articles/cornucopia.htmlhttp://macrobiotics.co.uk/sugar.htm 

http://macrobiotics.co.uk/articles/sugarcraving.htm 

We arrived Christmas Day and stayed in a hotel for 2 nights until the house was ready.  My husband called me from a local OXXO, the equivalent of a 7-11 in the states.  He said, “There was a kitten under a car at the red light. Someone shooed it out and I caught it.”  I said, “Ah, Chris, I’d thought we’d be in the country a week before we got a cat!  I’ll be down.” The fur ball musta been 6-7 weeks old and was pounding down a can of food.  We stuffed her into my purse and snuck her into the hotel.   Such subversives!  *chuckle*

Her name is Maria Lucia and she’s incorrigible.  That’s what happens, I suppose, when attempting to survive on the streets.  She is currently with our friends who are staying in our home and they claim they miss their cats less because of her. When they leave, she’s being entrusted with our new friend, Larry.  At this time we can only be a “half-way” house: I have faith that I will find her a permanent home when I return.

 I learned that it wasn’t a waste of time walking with my Mum to shop every day for veggies and fruits. My stall owner, Manuel, would ask me “?Lo Quieres a la noche o en la manana?  Meaning, “Do you want it tonight or tomorrow?”   And then pick one for me.  No one has ever asked me that question.  We ate a few fruits I hadn’t tried before, like a cepote, much like a pear but with added cinnamon.  Yum.  Whole chickens and fish were available to choose from, not packaged. Not always an easy site for this 60’s, previous vegetarian, but I marvelled at the apparent pride of each stall owner.

Running  two errands a day, i.e. getting a key made and going to post office, was enough.  New friends stopped by and conversations started. I hadn’t socialized spontaneously in years!!   We had no phone, so our friends had to stop by, most of them walking. Instead of waking up thinking about my “to do” list,  I woke up curious as to the days events.  I was slated to throw a party for my architect 5 days after moving in: I stayed in the “now” and it turned out fine.  It became clear to me that the party was about Pedro:  he finished on schedule and within budget. Excelente!

The siesta is alive and well and practiced in Merida.  It seems to come in the form of a 2 hour lunch when one may swing peacefully in a hamaca.  I finally tried one the day before we left and slept for an hour.   Flor, the matriarch of our adopted Mexican family of Pedro,  pointed out “The air flows above and below you, naturally being cooling. My children were raised rocking in hamacas.” 

The energy is different in Merida and the few surrounding areas we visited.  People are going about their day, but I didn’t sense the urgency as I do here in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco.   There is more of a sense of  acceptance that the day unfolds as its supposed to along with a sense of wonder. 

Interestingly, there were several homeopathic doctors offices combined with pharmacies in the neighborhood.  I was quite surprised and pleased to see them.  I look forward to looking into the local Mayan healers and herbs sold at the markets as well.

My re-entry here in the suburbs is touch and go. Yesterday, I sat in my car “bucking up” for the long line [which wasn't the problem] combined with the energy of  impatience [which was the problem] at the neighborhood post office.  I had just come from Spanish class to which I drove 25 to minutes instead of walking, as in Merida.  Somewhat insanely, we walk for “exercise” here, not to get from one place to another.  Food for thought.

Marie and her sister run the neighborhood lunchenette called Dona Tere.  These lunchesttes are called “cocina economicas” and every neighborhood has one or two.  For 3 USD, one can have a homecooked main course [choice of two] with a bowl of beans and corn tortillas. It’s their main meal and I can see why: one is delightfully satisfied.

The word “civilized” comes to mind when I think of our time in Merida, where one stops and chats, idles and allows for distractions.  Somehow, what was deemed important becomes less so, and what wasn’t thought important is.   Color me happy.  It’s always a joy to read “what’s new” here and have a chat…..Vaya con Dios.

Let me say, upfront, that Nourished Magazine is my favorite link. It’s educational, helpful, and steered at the helm by those-in-the-know.  How great is that?  What else is there?  Not much. If I want to know something I check here first. The others are simply additional information in the news that I feel a need to track.  But, one doesn’t really have to. I don’t feel a need to read about the dangers of smoking because I don’t happen to smoke.  I don’t often read about the side effects of pharma drugs because I don’t take them.  Yet, I know about them.  It frees up some time for what I need/want  to read. Yahoo.  There’s plenty.

As a tangential aside, I wasn’t that impressed with Michael Moore’s “Sicko.”  He was trying to get some firemen and volunteers [9-11] medical help in Cuba.  Granted his intentions were honorable.  However, the method of prescription drugs to pacify the symptoms, was not.  I posted him a note [probably one of a 1,000] at the beginning of his research and begged him to reconsider his story line that was misguided.  Instead I wanted him to reveal the bill of goods we’ve been sold when it comes to most allopathic medicine. [For the record, if I fall off my motorcycle, take me to the nearest ER].   Can you imagine the uproar had he taken on the cancer industry, pharma once again being the drug supplier, hospitals being the pushers? Wow, I would have loved to have seen that documentary!  

I settle for reading about these things “live” in the news, each little pill dropping further and further from the solution. And, you know what, that information has been in the alternative media for a minimum of 7 years before it hits mainstream press. That’s my experience.  Granted there’s got to be some ’scripts out there that are helpful.  I don’t know what they are, but there’s got to be.  I’d hate to think the pharma complex is making all this money without helping someone.  Yet, the paradox is that we all know the body heals itself, given half a chance, good nutrition and often some additional non-traditional methods.

Let me attempt to focus on the cup as half full.  There is more to celebrate on the NET than there is to fear!  About 6 years ago, my mother-in-law and I were sitting at my computer.  I described the Net to her as 8,000 libraries in her basement [she was a former librarian], hooked up to her computer, with ready access. She has Parkinson’s Disease [PD] and I asked her what stage her doctor told her she was in: he hadn’t told her about the stages and she hadn’t researched it.

The stages of PD are researched and described as well as the stages of AD [Alzheimer's Disease].  For some, it’s comforting to know what’s going on: for others, perhaps, morbid.  There’s nothing stopping one from applying “slowing down” methods, however.  Who’s to say it can’t be put into “remission?!”  Although I pulled up over 500,000 info sites on PD,  she opted not to consider sending for a notebook full of healing tools to help her.  She fell many times: so many times I don’t want to tell you until finally,  it was decided “well, maybe it is PD causing “these spills.”  I know I’m falling into the allopathic naming-the-disease trap yet not for a minute do I fall into the trap of thinking the solution lies within the same dogma. 

Which leads me to my first site,  http://www.thehealthresource.com/research_options.cfm  although it doesn’t give the reader any educational tidbits, that’s not its nature: it’s selling comprehensive packages/report on medical conditions.  If you order a comprehensive package and’/or individualized report, you get everything about i.e. alternative cancer treatment.  I ordered  a report for a client years back and I was impressed.  It would have taken me weeks to compile the data within the notebook on Crohn’s Disease.  I seem to attract people who need to read everything under the sun about their condition and I understand that. 

Additionally, The Health Resource will identify the top doctors in your area and who have treated it successully.  That’s $195. The above report is  not cheap at $400 bucks, yet, it was a huge notebook.  Personally, I’d go for it as a hospital stay just isn’t my first choice.  To their credit, this statement was on their website. “Financial Strains? We never want the cost of our research to keep you from getting the information you need in order to make the best decisions regarding your health.”  They send out a free newsletter periodically as well.

It used to be that nutrition was considered “alternative medicine.”  Being in the Bay Area in CA [San Francisco area], I am occasionally naive. I still find it difficult to imagine that one cannot believe the connection between nutrition and health.   Nine years ago,  I gave a talk during a lunch at a senior citizen center to an upscale crowd of about 60 retirees.  I got practically booed off the podium by an elderly gentleman for talking about Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the name for mad cow disease in humans which is named after two doctors.  [I've never understood the glory of having  a disease named after me].  I told this gentleman in no uncertain terms that there were a few people interested in what I had to say [going organic] and I was going to say it. He could wait his turn.  Well, I proceeded with TIME magazine blaring it on the cover and if it’s in TIME magazine, it must be true, right?  *chuckle* It’s mainstream press and I’m not adverse to using anything remotely ligit in getting my point acrossed to an audience that subscribes: the talk went on as planned.  I  wanted to drop a seed into their minds about the possibility of a misdiagnosis of AD and mad cow disease.  Which leads me to another favorite link of mine.

http://www.mercola.com/  Dr. Joseph Mercola is a chiropractor and extraordinarily generous with his information.  http://www.mercola.com/townofallopath/index.htm  I showed this video clip to my college students and they got it after about 3 times over the course of the quarter…it’s a true paradigm shift attempting to see how we treat the symptoms [ of most problems] &  not the problem.  It’s a great, satirical clip.  I can’t verify his products, but they seemingly look harmless.  I’m not one for a lot of pills, alternative or otherwise, but I understand a need for them from time to time.

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=v8WA5wcaHp4    You Tube is something else. This link was posted on the NT Yahoo Group page and it dispels the ‘fat’ myths.  You can find just about anything if you want to mess around a bit.  But, there’s another more direct route.  Check out what I read once a week:  http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/discussingnt/  It’s chock full of help and although I love the blog format better, i.e. Nourished Magazine, this has its merits. It’s also the group that has a potluck once a month with a guest speaker in my area, has started a buying co-op and its members are most helpful to newbies.

Lastly, http://www.newstarget.com/  I like this one for its political satire and some of its nutritional information, like its war on processed foods and political updates regarding health. It has good nutritional-focused cartoons that make me laugh. 

I’d be interested in your favorite links. Leave me a few.  As always, I love visiting and chatting with you. It makes me happy.

Do what makes you happy. *See* you again!  Abrasitos!

No one has asked me, but I can’t help but comment. I have been away from this blog for a couple months or so. Caught up in every day life; a life I’m attempting to extricate myself from: the too-busy-to-breathe life that is full of purported important points and activities, but really isn’t.

Granted, it takes time and one plots to “drop out” to a large degree and “drop into” a life that is more sane, more rich and more alive than one can imagine in her present state. But, it is often too easy to buy into one’s culture and think that life that is being lived is the “real” one. Just the image of a more meaningful life makes me happy and leads me to knowing what is real.

My point is many-fold. Learning a language is an interesting adventure: it builds character and develops the personality in ways that can’t be measured. One shelves a large part of the left brain [logical] and turns the right brain [intuitive/creative] free in order to explore another world. I mentioned Fallon and Price because I believe that, although their texts are written in English, their theories are a new language and if the reader is not learning Spanish like I am, she can still relate to what I am saying because she’s just spent the last year or so re-learning how to read a cookbook and the new words therein.

In learning any new language, one methodology that is inescapable and high on the list of most academics [home schooled and otherwise] is immersion. It is how we learned our first language: we were drenched in it. No one sat us down at three and flashed flash cards at us full of vocabulary words. Instead, we pointed to a ‘ball’ and someone said to us, ‘ball.’ No one corrected us when we said “I are beautiful” because they knew we’d find out soon enough.

Images or pictures imprint on our minds. We read books at three and point. We are helped by our siblings, our parents and a friend. I have a little theory for why we drop out of learning a language [whether it be Spanish or learning a new language for living differently]. I believe that we are not helped enough. I believe we often need to be taken by the hand and given “baby steps.” The next day, too, More hand-holding. More baby-steps.

We need help. It isn’t complicated. When we don’t get it, we often go into anxiety. The anxiety then turns into frustration and then irritation. Some of us drop out and others just get angry, then drop out. Nine students dropped out of my Spanish class after the first day: if I had not had some Spanish, I would have joined them.

The instructor is good but forgot to inform us how she was going to teach. She forgot to say: “Expect learning anxiety and some frustration.” Maybe she forgot because she is a native Spanish speaker. It doesn’t matter: the fact remains that we need to be informed about how we are going to be successful.

Instruction is key to learning. I adore this site with all of its gracious instruction on-line and off-line. Without it, I would not have learned so much so quickly. The interaction with others of “like mind” is invaluable. Then there is intuition. To intuitively recognize what is healthy for us: that is what Sally Fallon is teaching us…common sense.

From everything I’ve read, immersion works. I want to learn everything I can about Price’s work along with that of Sally Fallon, Mary Enig and Thomas Cowan. I’m going to immerse myself, once again, into this site, and read all those fabulous posts that mean so much to me and my mental, physical and spiritual health. I need optimum health to learn anything.

With my slowed down, dropped out pace, I can then turn to Spanish and learn, immersing myself in the language in all the forms: music, movies, interaction and the country. I have faith that some day I will be speaking Spanish without thinking how to do so in English. And, I will give back and show someone [not tell them] how to make kefir just like I was taught.
Language…it opens the mind and creates new worlds and I, for one, breath easier.
I’m so delighted to be here and I’m glad you’re here too.

Mackenzie says,”Australia is awesome!  I like it because everything is neat there….I love the Veronicas. It’s rock music.  It’s been a pleasure to stay with Karen a week and I’ll be sad to go home.  I’m really glad she’s not such a vegetarian anymore and doesn’t give me wheat grass juice like she used to!  Ta ta! Mate!”

I’m takin’ back my blog! Well, there you go, my friend and cousin, Mackenzie.

 Lots of action here. I must get to it and read, read, read.  I’m interested now in losing weight a little faster, well, more consistently. So, I’m diving back into getting support from the twelve step program and actually feel better already because I’m been doing what I’m supposed to do like exercise and eat three meals and no ‘trigger foods.’  Color me even happier. I have solvable problems.  Now let’s elect a new Prez and a new party…..heaven help the USA.

 I hope this finds you all well and happy.

It’s always good to be here.  More next week…Mac goes back to Illinois.  She’s such a geek. I’ve learned so much in a short amount of time!

Best to you…..Karen

Merida Train Station -French Influenced Architecture

I’m back after three weeks in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.  Most people have heard of Cancun, but I’m finding my friends are clueless as to the names and capitals of the states in Mexico.  We either didn’t learn them, or forgot them.  Not difficult, actually.

 The weather was hot and humid.  I can’t remember when I’ve ever been so hot!  It took me a week to acclimate myself with the numbered streets and directions.  I was in ‘al centro’ at a hotel called Luz en Yucatan at 25 bucks a night with pool.  I have to say a pool is essential during the summer months, especially.  The Saint Lucia Church bells rang each morning.  Before Mass, they had a healing session with prayers and practitioners laying on of hands.  I didn’t understand what was said in Spanish, but I enjoyed being “part of.”

Everyone walks or if far, they take the 40 cent bus anywhere in the city. I strolled to al mercado [market] and bought fresh tortillas, melons and mangoes. And, for some reason, Gouda seems to be plentiful as is the usual  white crumbling cheese called queso blanco. Fresh fish and hanging chickens too, with feet, not something I’m used to seeing in Safeway or Whole Foods.  Turkey is also big in this state & used in many Mayan specialties.

  At the end of my trip, my new friend, Carlos and his father picked me up at 5 a.m. and took me to the airport last Tuesday. Not until I went up the escalator to my plane did they leave me, waving good bye.  I can’t remember the last time someone came into the airport to see me off.  Needless to say I was touched by this show of graciousness and touched deeply.

Merida has a free-floating sense of deep spirituality.  The city is what it is and shows its true colors in its care of its children.  The hustle and bustle of early morning was my favorite time of day.  Organic is coming to the forefront as are environmental concerns led by a local group. 

All in all, for a city of 800,000, it successfully combines a sense of country and city in one place.  Such a paradox!   I started looking at real estate w/ an agent. We found a little colonial home that needed some work & one could walk everywhere, no car needed.   Then,  I visited an attorney and an architect.  Neither one charged me for talking to them.  I signed papers written in Spanish resulting in the ownership of a little casita.  If I waited, we wouldn’t be able to afford anything.  By the time we are ready to retire, it can be sold to buy land .  I still like the idea of a Mongolian yurt. :-)   My husband, Chris, ever the good sport, will visit the city in a couple of months for the first time.  *chuckle*  A bit backward in process, but it all seemed to fall in place. 

Can’t help that it feels ‘meant to be.’  We’ll rent it out at a reasonable price to those interested leaving our laptop, music and movies to share. By the time the construction is finished in January, it will fit 6 adults comfortably plus kids in hammocks that hang in the traditional Mexican flat. The pool will be in and all one would need is a good book and time for a siesta!  :-)

Nice to be back…Off to read the posts I’ve missed and study Espanol!  Hugs!  and good to be *here.*

One of my Chinese students said, “It’s not alternative, Miz F [the nickename that class gave me]. It’s been around my culture for over 2,000 years.”  She was referrring to, of course, Chinese medicine which includes: accupuncture, herbs, moxibustion, and Chinese massage.

I don’t use allopathic t[traditional] medicine unless I’m in the dental chair and my dentist numbs the gum.  Not to say I wouldn’t use it in emergency situations….I’m not a martyr, by any means.  It just means, on the whole,  I stay away from over-the-counter drugs and Big Pharma and use alternative medicine, if needed.  I believe the body will rally to homeostatis if given half a chance without medicine, herbal or otherwise.

My favorite book about it all is “Selling Sickness” by Moynihan and Cassels.  Extraordinary. It’s divided into chapters that take on a different medication put out by either Merck, Astra Zeneca, GlaxoSmithKline or Johnson and Johnson, to name a few.  So, you don’t have to read the whole book if you don’t want to.  The prologue is a glimpse of dirty tricks: 

• the pharma industry is $50 billion a year, $5,707/hr  
• the “experts,” often on pharma payroll, have lowered the blood pressure numbers and redefined disease thereby automatically increasing customers and having a cross-use for a drug, both resulting in increased profits
• increasing fear of heart attacks persuading women to use HRT, early death to promote CHO meds,  & youth suicide to sell parents powerful drugs for even mild depression
• bottom line: more healthy people are being defined as sick resulting in higher profits [and disasterous side effects & more drugs to counter the side effects]

Pharma reps say they are empowering the “consumer” and that their paid celebrities are educating the public about health conditions.  This type of “reasoning” isn’t difficult to refute.  If an improvement in human health were truly the industry’s primary aim, we would focus on more useful actions.  Perhaps some of the billions invested in expensive drugs to lower the ‘cholesterol of the worried’ might more efficiently spent on campaigns to reduce smoking, increase physical exercise and improve diet. Yet health education is not valued: departments are likely small and I’ve consulted with  some that were  in [hospital] basements.    Additionally, the departmental budget is usually minimal. 

Moynihan and Cassels write: “This disease-mongering is an assault on our collective soul by those seeking to profit from our fear.  It is no dark conspiracy, simply daylight robbery.”  It’s the black magic of disease mongering, the process of doctors and big pharma widening the boundaries of illness resulting in more patients and the selling of more drugs.  Once we learn the tricks of the trade, we’ll be capable of seeing the ‘formula’ every where!

 If one reads the Weston Price materials,  the truth is all there at  http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/fats_phony.html.  Chapter 1 reports that part of that bundle of profits, Lipitor is racking up sales of 10 billion, making Pfizer of the largest corporations in the world, due to fear of high cholesterol.  That’s $127,000/day, $1,141 bucks/hr.  *chuckle* Sometimes, I think I’m in the wrong business.  But, then I regain consciousness and wonder how these people sleep at night.

I just wanted to *talk* about this.  It took me weeks just to plow through the prologue and register the manipulations and believe them.  I have a 10 slide presentation if anyone is remotely interested: I’ll send it to you to use/peruse.  It’s taken me another six months to continue to finish the book.  It breaks my heart, actually, to see this type of manipulation of people at a stressful time in their lives…when they are sick.   The whole experience of “waking up” is like a bad movie: I wanted it to end, yet I knew even as I finished the text, the deceit would continue as in a sequel. 

It was time to write about it, share the information and attempt to solicit and create support for a movement that says “Not interested.”   On behalf of the children, I put myself out there in protest of all those drugs promoted on behalf of their *health* and all the other drugs they take to manage the resulting side effects.

As always….it’s a good *hanging out* here: one of comraderie, alignment and support for all things good, sane and healthy.  I’m glad to be here and I’m glad you’re here too.

Without giving away the movie, it’s about love and politics. Bill Nighy [Love Actually, another excellent film] stars in it along with Kelly Macdonald. They go off together to a very important [in real life, a real world meeting] gathering of leaders to talk about the top problems of the world and their solutions.  Gina [Kelly] steps in to challenge them to be ‘great.’  It’s poignant, sweet, touching, painful and straight-shooting.

I watch it because it inspires me to be uncomfortable, to go forth without a path, and to take what comes as a direct result.  Not knowing “what’s next” always has its anxieties that go along with it, but the rewards…well, they can be and usually are, profound. And, if not, then well, later.  I chalk it up to “seed planting.”

 I was wondering what books, movies, plays or people do that for you as I can use those guides, too.   Mentors, no matter what their appearance, offer courage each day.  So  instead of slipping and sliding alone, my path is a bit more firm and my direction a bit more steady, going forward.  And, when its NOT, I have the guides to look up again for back-up because there is always someone who has gone before me.

Living life in service is contagious because its so exciting….Who doesn’t want to add glee to their lives?  Life is a trip……who needs coffee?!  :-)   

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/ThePriceOfAMom.aspx?GT1=10019dap(”&PG=INVID1&AP=1089″,300,250)

By MSN Money staff

>>>>What’s a mom worth?  According to one new report, $138,095 a year.

That’s the figure in a report by Salary.com, which calculates the wages that would have been paid a stay-at-home mom in 2007 if she were compensated for all the elements of her “job.” That total is up 3% from 2006’s salary of $134,121. <<<<<

 I thought this [US figure] was important enough to post. The article goes on to say that the average mum works a 92 hour week, so if you’re wondering why you’re tired, that might be it. No amount of good nutrition is going to take the place of a good nap. :-)  The article does talk about stay at home dads/partners too, to some degree, so let me acknowledge them as well.  Yet, statistically, here in the States, the movement is primarily women staying at home.

The one aspect that was listed but not embellished was the emotional support and homeschooling wasn’t a topic, both I think should be up there with everything else, if not above everything else.  The laundry will be there tomorrow and a 2 year old usually doesn’t mind wearing the same thing the next day.

My hats off to Mums of the world.  I just talked to mine over the phone.  I told her “It’s not easy being popular amongst your daughters, eh?”  She laughed and said “No, not really.” She was telling me before she visited me again, she was going to have to spend some time with the other two.  *chuckle* Not easy keeping the peace, I suppose, but I told her “how lucky! Everyone wants you to visit.”  The difference is that most of the time, I drop everything when she’s here [easier to do when one doesn't work outside the home] unlike my sisters, who can’t except for once a year for a week.  So, those weeks around the holiday are taken.  I’m not fond of traveling during the holidays nor going anywhere remotely commercial, anyway.  It all seems to have a flow about it.

I thought seeing this HUGE amount of $$ would be a good thing to see “in print.”  I know I benefitted from having my mum home …there was just something special about coming home and smelling dinner cooking or having Toll House cookies [chocolate chip] waiting on the counter.  I knew, somewhere in the subconscious, that my Mum thought of me while I was away.   And, sometimes, school seemed to go on interminably.

Looking forward to taking part in Peace Day!

As always, nice chatting.